


Time Ago

by sister_wolf



Category: DCU (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-14
Updated: 2006-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-12 05:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_wolf/pseuds/sister_wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been two weeks and Kon still can't believe that Tim quit being Robin.  Just <em>quit</em>, like being Robin was some kind of part-time <em>job</em> or something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Ago

**Author's Note:**

> This is set between Teen Titans (v.3) issues 14 & 15\. Written for [](http://trunks-angel.livejournal.com/profile)[**trunks_angel**](http://trunks-angel.livejournal.com/)'s ficlet request (a few months late and a few thousand words over.)

"More mashed potatoes, Conner?" Mrs. Kent asks, holding the wooden spoon poised over the bowl. The table is covered in mass quantities of Kon's favorite foods, as if enough home cooking will fix whatever is wrong with him.

He hates to disappoint her, but even Martha Kent's prize-winning mashed potatoes can't make him feel better, not now. Kon swallows a mouthful of fried chicken and shakes his head. "No, thank you, Aunt Martha. I'm pretty full."

Putting the spoon down with a disappointed expression, Martha shakes her head and tsk-tsks. "A growing boy needs his food. Is something wrong at school? Or is it a problem with your team?"

"Leave the boy alone, Martha," Mr. Kent says, patting her hand. "He'll talk about whatever it is when he's ready."

"May I be excused?" Kon asks, standing up from the table. "I'm sorry, it's all really good, but I just--" He just needs to think. Or maybe he needs to stop thinking. It's been two weeks and he still can't believe that Tim quit being Robin. Just _quit_ , like being Robin was some kind of part-time _job_ or something.

"You're excused, dear," she says, smiling at him fondly. "The leftovers will be in the fridge if you get hungry later."

"Thanks, Aunt Martha." If he was Clark, he'd kiss her on the cheek and say something nice. But he's just Kon, so he nods his head kind of awkwardly and tries not to knock anything over on his way out the kitchen door.

The screen door bangs closed behind him as he walks out onto the back porch. Krypto growls at him from his favorite spot under the porch swing. Scowling at the dog, Kon mutters quietly, so that the Kents won't hear him, "There's gonna be Kryptonite in your puppy chow if you don't _shut the fuck up_."

Krypto yawns at him, showing off a mouthful of sharp white teeth. Giving Kon a nasty look, the dog trots over to the maple tree between the barn and the house, lifts a leg, and pees all over the base of the tree.

Kon makes a face. "A boy needs a dog. Yeah, thanks, Clark."

He forgot to put on his shoes before he left the house. Not that it really matters. It's not like anything can hurt him. Anything around here, anyway.

Automatically, he looks up at the sky to judge the weather. The air has been heavy and still all day. Now, dark clouds are starting to blow in from the west and there's a fitful breeze tossing the top branches of the trees. Feels like rain coming in.

Kon scuffs his feet on the hard-packed dirt of the path leading to the cornfields. He can't even _believe_ that he's been in the country for so long that he doesn't even need the Weather Channel anymore. Soon he'll be wearing seed caps and hanging out at the five and dime talking about tractors and fertilizer. God, he misses Hawaii.

He misses Tim. Kon scowls and kicks viciously at the ground, kicking up a cloud of dirt and leaving a divot in the path. Glancing guiltily back toward the house, Kon uses his tactile TK to try to push the dirt back into the hole. He hurries down the path until he's hidden from sight of the house by tall stalks of corn rising higher than his head.

Tim left without saying goodbye. As far as Kon can tell, he didn't _ever_ plan on telling them what was going on. As if that girl-- Spoiler, or whatever she used to call herself-- would just show up at the Tower dressed up as Robin one day and no one would even know the difference. Like Tim didn't even _care_ about whether Bart and Kon were worried about him. Best friends, yeah right.

Tim looked… contented, when Kon found him in Gotham. Happy to be normal. He was talking about making plans for _college_. Like being Robin was just some sort of temporary aberration in his perfect suburban life. Like he could put it all behind him. And maybe he could. He's not like Kon, or Bart, or even Cassie. He could give it all up, become a normal kid again. After all, Cissie did.

With a low grumble of thunder, the sky opens up, pouring down rain. Kon concentrates on his TK, making an aura around himself so that he won't get wet. Raindrops hit his TK bubble and run down it like a plate glass window. Soon he's squelching through thick mud. It feels really weird, because his aura is keeping his feet from really feeling the muck that tries to cling to them. Kon shakes his feet off, disgusted, and flies low over the cornfields on his way back to the house.

The lights are off at the rear of the house. The Kents are probably sitting in the living room by now, watching television. Or rather, Martha knits while Mr. Kent dozes off in his easy chair. Kon really appreciates them taking him in and treating him like family, but man, life here is so boring he's starting to understand why a town as tiny as Smallville has, like, half a dozen bars. There's nothing else to _do_.

He's had to find his own ways to keep himself occupied. Or, to put it more bluntly, he jacks off so much that he's in danger of starting to find masturbation _boring_. Depressed, lonely, and horny as fuck over one of his best friends-- how's _that_ for pathetic.

The barn door creaks on its hinges as Kon opens it. He navigates his way past the tarp-covered hulks of farm equipment and dusty bales of hay by memory. He spends so much time up here in the loft that the Kents are starting to call it his Fortress of Solitude, with a fond indulgence that makes him feel kind of like an asshole that his main reason for spending so much time up here is to jerk off. Then again, Clark was a teenager once. He's pretty sure this isn't the _first_ time that a horny teenager has used the barn loft for its convenient privacy. And that's the last time he _ever_ wants to think about his gene donor's masturbatory habits ever again, thank you very much.

There's an old couch up in the loft, covered with a soft red and blue plaid blanket. Kon settles onto the couch, stretching his legs out, and feels the springs give unevenly under his weight. He's probably doomed to forever find the smell of dry hay and musty blanket a turn-on. Probably not exactly what Clark had in mind when he said that living in Smallville would teach Kon a lot.

Lying on his back with one arm crooked over his head, Kon rests his other hand low on his belly. The rain drums against the barn roof, interrupted occasionally by the rumble of rolling thunder. He's got a whole mental library filled with images of Tim. Kon flips through the images slowly, not in a hurry to get off. He's got nothing but time.

Tim's eyes, shockingly blue against the dark green domino mask. Tim's face, caught in various emotions: brooding, smug, uncertain, determined. The rare flicker of sexual interest, so quickly there and gone that Kon has learned to take little mental snapshots, to be pored over later in the privacy of his own room. The curve of his lower lip, and the way his face relaxes when he really smiles.

Tim's hands, and weirdly enough, his elbows. Kon would be more worried about the elbow thing, but considering that it's the _only_ flesh bared by the Robin uniform, he's pretty sure it's not _that_ weird to find Tim's inner elbow kind of fascinating. One of these days, he really wants to get the chance to trace the blue veins under Tim's skin with his tongue.

One of these days... Kon sighs. There won't _be_ a 'one of these days,' not if Tim's serious about quitting for good. And Tim being serious is one of those rules of the universe that you can always count on; Batman will always be a paranoid freak, Superman will always be able to make Kon feel guilty without saying a word, and Tim will always mean what he says (unless he's lying to a supervillain or something). So if he says he isn't coming back...

And now Kon's totally lost his hard-on. Muttering in frustration, he sits up, thunking his feet on the floor viciously. Nothing feels right with Tim gone. Kon hangs out with Bart at the tower, but it's like Tim is some kind of missing limb and they've both got phantom pains. Kon heard about phantom pains from a friend of Mr. Kent who lost one of his legs from the knee down in Vietnam. He said it'd been over forty years, but he still felt his toes itching sometimes, and it drove him crazy not being able to scratch it. Missing Tim is like that.

And it's like he's lost Tim _and_ Bart now, because they can't be the Three Musketeers (Id, Ego, and Superego, like Red Tornado said) with only two of them. It just doesn't work.

The cast-iron bell that Kon convinced Mr. Kent to hang on the outside of the barn as an improvised doorbell rings, followed by the sound of the door creaking open and Aunt Martha's voice. "Conner?"

Flinching, Kon checks his zipper by reflex, color flooding his cheeks at the horrifying thought of his aunt walking in while he's jerking off. "Yes, Aunt Martha?" he calls, trying to sound casual.

"You missed dessert, sweetheart." Pushing back the hood of her rain slicker, Martha smiles up at him as Kon sticks his head over the railing of the loft. "I brought you a slice of pie. It's apple, your favorite."

"Thanks, Aunt Martha. You didn't have to." Kon takes the stairs from the loft two at a time, relieving her of the burden of a plate covered in tinfoil. From the shape, it looks like more than just a slice of pie. He peeks under the edge of the foil. Mmmm, chocolate chip cookies.

"I know," she says, smiling indulgently. "I have something else for you-- your cell phone. Now, we grounded you from the cell phone for good reason, and you're not getting it back for good yet, but I thought it might be nice if you gave your friend a call."

"Ti-- I mean, Robin? I can't call him. He quit the team-- quit it all, quit everything-- and we're not supposed to call him or go see him or anything."

She puts the phone in his hand and curls his fingers over it, holding onto his hand lightly. "Clark told me, dear. I meant your other friend, Impulse."

"Kid Flash," Kon corrects automatically. He frowns at the phone, trying to remember the last time he called Bart. It has to have been-- oh man, like three weeks ago. Before Tim left. Kon officially sucks-- some best friend _he_ is.

"Call him," Martha says, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek. Patting him on the hand, she pulls the rain slicker back up over her hair and leaves, closing the barn door behind her.

Curled up on the sofa again, Kon turns on the little TV and DVD player he'd talked the Kents into putting into the loft. The satellite dish hidden discreetly at the edge of the roof is relatively new, a Christmas present for the Kents from Clark a few years ago. Kon shudders-- he can't even _imagine_ being stuck here in the middle of nowhere without cable.

He flips half-heartedly until he finds a sci-fi movie that he's seen at least half a dozen times, then wastes a little more time digging a Pepsi out of his stash behind the little entertainment center. The Kents have strong opinions concerning caffeinated soda after dinner, so Kon has learned to hide a few cans in the loft whenever he can.

Munching a chocolate chip cookie for moral support, Kon dials Bart's number. He hopes Bart won't be too pissed off at him for kind of falling off the face of the planet on him. Sure, they see each other at the Tower every weekend, but... it's not the same.

Bart picks up before the end of the first ring. "Hello?"

"Hey, Bart, it's me. Kon."

"Hey, Kon. 'Sup?" Bart's voice is, as always, just a little too fast to be normal.

"Nothing much. What're you up to?"

"Not a whole lot. Playing x-box, watching a movie." Of course Bart can do both things at once. Kon's seen him beat Gar at Mortal Kombat while at the same time reciting all the dialogue to The Wrath of Khan from memory. That was a fun afternoon-- Tim does a surprisingly good Shatner impression. Kon sighs, trying not to fall into moping again.

"Which movie? I'm watching Pitch Black." Mmmm, Claudia Black in a low-cut tank top.

"Highlander."

Kon narrows his eyes. "Original, evil, lame, or TV version?"

"Original." Bart sounds surprised that Kon would even _have_ to ask that question-- of _course_ it's the original Highlander.

"Sweet." There's a comfortable silence for a few minutes, broken only by the sound of munching on cookies, rain drumming on the roof, and cheesy sci-fi dialogue. On the screen, one of the kids makes the cardinal mistake of any horror movie: exploring a spooky, abandoned building alone. Kon winces. "Man. That's gotta be a nasty way to die."

"What?" Bart asks, sounding like he's got a mouthful of chips.

"Being eaten alive by alien birds."

"Know what would suck more?"

"What?"

"Being an _Immortal_ and getting eaten alive by alien birds."

"Ooooh. Suck."

They're okay. Kon grins, settling himself in for the long haul. He still feels Tim's absence like a phantom limb, but-- he still has all this. Aunt Martha's cookies, the sound of thunder in the distance, and Bart's raspy laughter in his ear as he comes up with increasingly unlikely ways for an Immortal to 'die.'

And maybe, someday? He'll have Tim back too.


End file.
